Thursday, 22 April 2010

Question 6 - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop has been one of the main pieces of technology that I have used throughout my coursework. Prior to this project, I was familiar with the programme due to the preliminary project and photography work, however I have become far more aware of the tools and uses after creating my magazine. I have used Adobe Photoshop in conjunction with Adobe Lightroom in order to edit and perfect photographs, as well as using it to create both my front cover and contents page. Photoshop makes it easy to manipulate images and text by featuring different "layers" and resizing tools, whilst featuring a wide variety of colours, making it easy to keep the colour scheme corresponding throughout the magazine. Making use of different "layers" whilst manipulating shapes and text on the front cover made it a lot easier to create a more professional feel to my magazine. It was also easy to apply shadow effects to text, helping it stand out on the page.

QuarkXPress

I used QuarkXPress to create my double page spread. It was a useful program to use because it made it easy to add images and text to the page, however occasionally I found it awkward when arranging them. After getting familiar with the program I found it slightly easier, but on the whole I found Adobe Photoshop more effective for making text and images look professional on a page. The program does allow you to easily create a double page however, and the grid guidelines made it simple to distribute text and images equally on the page.

Facebook

Facebook is a social networking website, and has been incredibly useful throughout the coursework project when collecting audience research. This website allows you to upload photo's so other people can view and make make comments about them. This was useful when finding out which fonts, pictures and colours were appealing to my target audience, as they could leave their comments and opinions about them. This then allowed me to adapt and improve my work so it appealed to my target audience more.

Blogger

Blogger has been the main log of all my coursework, which has been very simple and easy to use. Prior to the preliminary task i was unaware of how to use this website, however it was easy to learn how to arrange text and pictures on a blog, as well as other useful tools like embedding videos from Youtube. Using these tools i have been about to post information about my research and planning, construction and evaluation.

Youtube

Youtube has been a useful tool when gaining both audience research and evaluation for my magazine. On this website, you can upload videos and retrieve html which allows you embed videos into other websites, such as Blogger - my main coursework log. Throughout the coursework project, I have uploaded various videos in which my target audience are being asked about their opinions on my magazine.

Digital SLR Camera

Before the coursework and preliminary project, I hadn't used a DSLR camera, so it took a bit of practice to learn how to use one. The main camera i used for my coursework was a Canon EOS 400D, which was fairly easy to use after learning about the different settings and features. The zoom on the lens made it very easy to take different shots, such as long shot and medium close up. The flash helped make the shots look more 'flawless', and because the camera had 10 mega pixels, the pictures were more refined making it easier to edit them accurately in Photoshop.